“Nothing was wrong,” Livvy said. “I just couldn’t get into Idris. But I think I was just outside of it, somehow. Just outside the wards. I overheard people talking. Zara and Manuel. They were checking the wards and talking.”

“Talking about what?” Ty said. He sat down at his desk and flipped open his notebook.

“Mostly about how hungry they were. But I think they have a way to spy on us. Well, not us, but you know. They can spy on everyone out here outside Idris. And they’re planning some kind of surprise attack.”

“When?” Ty said, busily writing.

“They didn’t say. And ‘surprise attack’ is overstating it. They mentioned in a vague kind of way that when they did attack us, we were going to be really surprised and then really dead. Because they think they’re super awesome and all we do is sit around and eat delicious croissants. And then they finished testing the wards and went away, and I couldn’t hear anything else.”

“Still,” Ty said. “Those are two pieces of information. We should go tell someone. I could tell Ragnor. Or Catarina.”

“No,” Livvy said. “I’m the one who figured it out. I want to be the one who gets to tell. I’ll go find Magnus and tell him. Didn’t Helen say in her last letter that Magnus was spending time at the Los Angeles Institute?”

Ty didn’t look at her. “Yes,” he said at last. “That seems fair. You should go. Only, Livvy?”

“What,” she said.

“While you were gone,” he said, “did you feel different? Did you feel anything strange?”

Livvy considered his question. “No,” she said. “Write that down in the book. That I didn’t feel anything strange at all. You don’t need to worry about me, Ty. I’m dead. Nothing bad can happen to me now.”

Irene was curled up on Ty’s bed now, leg extended as she fastidiously groomed one haunch. Her unblinking golden eyes stayed fixed on Livvy. They said, I belong here. Do you?

“You and Irene take care of each other while I’m gone, okay?” Livvy said.

“You’re going now?” Ty said. He grimaced as if the thought was causing him physical discomfort.

“Don’t wait up,” Livvy said, and then the room around her was gone, and she was once again standing on the beach beside the Los Angeles Institute, the sun slipping down below the darkening waves of the Pacific Ocean. The rush of the water down the sand was wrong somehow.

She could see lights blazing in the windows of the Institute. She wasn’t sure, but most likely they had already had dinner. Someone, probably Helen or Aline, would be doing the dishes. Tavvy would be getting ready for bed. Someone would read a book to him. Mark and Cristina would be in New York, most likely. Was Mark more settled in the human world now? It had always seemed so strange to her, how he had been taken from them and then restored. How alien he had seemed when he came back. And yet now she had become something even stranger.